Body Language Science: Mehrabian's 7-38-55 Rule, Power Poses and Ekman

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A thumbs up means approval in the United States and France but works as an insult in Bangladesh and Iran. The episode treats body language as a primate inheritance: chimpanzees and bonobos learn gestures through ontogenetic ritualization, while humans use the body to carry complex emotional content. In the 1950s anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell coined the term kinesics and rejected the idea of a body language dictionary, since gestures carry several meanings depending on context. A Northeastern University study found many people can fake a Duchenne smile on command, but the brain reads face and posture together and flags a mismatch.

The episode covers involuntary pupil dilation, how head tilt changes vocal pitch, how the breathing central pattern generator speeds breathing under stress, and how joy and anger change a person's gait. Albert Mehrabian's 7-38-55 rule applies only to conversations about feelings and attitudes, not to factual information. Edward T. Hall's proxemic zones, Heslin's five categories of touch and tie signs, used more by dating couples than married ones, explain space and contact. Amy Cuddy's 2010 power pose advice was retracted by 2015 after other labs failed to replicate the hormonal effects.

• Standing arms akimbo signals confidence in the West but aggression and disrespect in Bali.
• In a study using the game Mafia, hidden spies minimized their presence while emerging leaders used louder voices, upright posture and unsmiling faces.
• Self-soothing adapters such as touching the face or clicking a pen are tied to lower sales and persuasiveness.
• Paul Ekman found that an isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea recognized emotions in photos of Americans, and Tracy and Robins added pride and shame as universal displays in 2008.
• The episode states there is no scientific evidence that body language can reliably detect lies, though the FBI still teaches it.